Scott Edward Walker

I worked with Scott, or should I say, Scott's firm for my last startup. I chose Scott because of his blog posts on startup issues, his active participation in LA startup events, and the fact that he was located in LA, which is where I am. This last attribute turned out to be worthless because I only ...spoke to Scott on my first call with him, where he introduced me to another member of his firm in San Francisco who I worked with over phone and email. I suggested meeting up with him as I felt it important to know my lawyer in person, but he ignored my requests. I got the impression that Scott's firm is trying to break into the startup market, rather than being experienced in it. When I asked for references of successful startups that they'd worked with, they had trouble producing any. No problem, I thought, these guys are sort of a startup, too. Big mistake. The firms up in Silicon Valley are much better versed in startup issues, and are prepared for anything, and can say "we've done this 100x before, this is the way to do it" and move on. They will also defer fees until you raise money, which Scott was reluctant to do, although he did offer flat rate for many things. I think the bottom line was that I never felt like I had a startup-focused firm on my side. Scott's firm seemed rooted in their large corporate backgrounds, always presenting lots of alternatives and saying "well, you're exposed to risk if you do this" ... hey man, we're a startup, we need to just decide and move on. We don't have time to be dealing with CYA up and down, we just need to know what is the quickest way to get this deal done, and they couldn't help with that. In closing, Scott and his firm may be good lawyers, but not for startups.

My business partner and I were looking to incorporate our tech startup and feel fortunate that we found Scott Walker's firm for what we hope will become a long-term working relationship. Scott and John Rosenbaum understand the tech startup space forward and backward and we couldn’t have been happier ...with their fast response times, their breadth of knowledge (we were total newbies and asked tons of questions) and their patience and counsel when a potential equity partner fell through in the middle of incorporating our company. We feel that Scott Walker and John Rosenbaum have set us up for long-term success and we have never doubted our choice in partnering with them.

I first learned about Scott Walker through his sponsorship of This Week in Startups. I engaged his firm for some trademark and IP stuff, and Bruno did a great job. I then needed help with a seed financing and I spoke to Scott, who recommended convertible notes and assigned the project to Ki - who w...as fantastic. In fact, Scott was copied on all the emails and even weighed-in at times at no charge. They really know the startup space, and I would highly recommend them.